Support your local prophet!

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner writes:
We understand that ordinary people are messengers of the Most High. They go about their tasks in holy anonymity. Yet, if they had not been there, if they had not said what they said or did what they did, it would not be the way it is now. We would not be the way we are now. Never forget that you too yourself may be a messenger.

The prophet is one who points to the corruption and banality of the present moment and cries doom. The prophet details the betrayal and calls the people back to covenant.

Is there an implicit covenant that is framed by the promises and ideals of the U.S. national tradition? I taught history before I choose to go back to theological school. I know that the ideals of the Declaration of Independence did not extend beyond white male property owners, and that the "we the people" that constituted the Constitution did not include the nations of Native Americans or the African American people. Yet over time we extended the promise, and "we the people" enter into a covenant to create a national community based on ideals of inclusive justice.

Can I critique the performance, the failure to honor the covenant and the same time believe in the promise enough to be call on others to renew the covenant? Will our descent in post modernist nihilism and narcissist aversion to bad news make our people immune to hear with ears that hear the good news that prophets are among us, and our local prophet may be ourselves?